The University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria has landed its first recruit for the new Cancer Research Center.

Eleonora Zakharian, a former assistant professor at New Jersey Medical School in Newark, is the new assistant professor of cancer biology at the college of medicine.

Zakharian and two research assistants focus on the fields of biophysics, biochemistry and molecular biology.

She received a major scientific grant, about $1 million from the National Institutes of Health last year, which she will use here to continue her research.

Her work involves studying how cells, particularly cancer cells, communicate with one another and how to regulate or inhibit their growth.

Zakharian and the research assistants are setting up laboratory equipment on the first floor of the $13 million research center, which was built to attract more cancer researchers to the college of medicine.

Pam Adams can be reached at 686-3245 or padams@pjstar.com. Follow her on Twitter @padamspam.